Penthuisiast
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SD: CH33 - Penelope
🕑 Added 2023-01-16 07:45:10 +0000 UTC“Two pistachios and one raspberry sundae,” said Penelope, “will that be all?”
You’d think after spending the better part of two months in this twisted version of British wizarding society, I’d have stopped being surprised by the curve balls this world threw my way. I had had first-hand experience with Hermione, a genius by all rights yet shunned simply because she got afflicted with lycanthropy. There was Hestia, a talented solicitor that got thrown off her job simply because she got on Lucius Malfoy’s bad side. Tracey was a quintessential example of purebloods taking undue advantage of halfbloods and muggleborns just to fuel their own agendas— suffering the bigotry of her own father, only to be thrust into the hands of the scheming, crafty House of Greengrass wanting to use her ancestry for their own pursuits. And here was Penelope Clearwater— Prefect turned Head-girl, serving ice-cream and delicacies to customers when by all rights, she should’ve been spearheading some high-ranking department in the Ministry.
Yep. These people are all class.
What was worse was that the muggleborns and halfbloods did not have a way out of this mess. Lured into magical society by the wonders of Hogwarts, they didn’t even understand when their education turned into shackles that bound them to a lifetime of slavery and bigotry. The first five years gave them a little breathing time, but as the OWLs set in, the situation changed. Muggle money had no meaning to the goblins, and no pureblood worth his salt would ever hire a muggleborn or halfblood in any substantial Ministry position, which meant working for private corporations or worse, selling themselves in Knockturn Alley. Paying off the education debt tied them for the first decade or so, and by the time they got some breathing room back, they were already shackled by their children turning Hogwarts’ age, and the cycle began anew. Those that wanted to skip this struggle by escaping to other lands were persecuted and dropped into Azkaban, or worse, punished by extravagant fees, enough to shackle them into working for some snotty pureblood pedophile for the rest of their lives.
This wasn’t bigotry. This was a magical French revolution in the making.
I wondered how it’d be if Tom Riddle, a halfblood that suffered through the same bigotry as these people, would’ve grown up to become the leader of a Muggleborn movement. A Dark Lord that championed the cause of the tortured, a scourge that brought the pureblood aristocracy to its knees. I have no doubt that with his power, Tom would’ve become the greatest figure in British history, and the father of a glorious revolution. How terribly sad that he chose the safer route, choosing his own immortality and championing pureblood propaganda, while being an utter hypocrite, satisfied with purebloods kneeling before him and kissing the hem of his robes while he paraded himself as the epitome of pureblood elitism.
I wonder if he’d do the same if he realized that the muggleborn and halfblood population outnumbered the purebloods by a magnitude.
The kind of information you’d get if you had a former Secretary of the Department of International Magical Cooperation as your assistant.
“‘Xcuse me?” Penelope’s words took me out of my reveries.
“Uh… yes?”
“I asked, would that be all, sir?” She offered a small smile that did not reach her eyes.
I wondered how she did this day-in day-out without breaking down, but I suppose when life pushes you around, the majority of people just try to move faster, compromising every step out of the way. Very few actually have the courage to push back.
“No,” I said, “that’ll be all.”
Penelope nodded and turned to leave. A part of me wanted to establish small talk, just to get a better picture of her talents. Bigotry or no, one didn’t just become the Headboy or Head Girl for nothing. I knew for a fact that your OWL results, your NEWT pre-test results at the end of sixth year, as well as your all-around performance, class participation, general popularity and contribution to House Points were all taken into consideration before choosing someone for the position.
Such a person could be very useful for my newest venture with the goblins.
But I couldn’t just bring up her achievements without insulting her, at least not in public. So I kept quiet, and waited for the magic to happen. If things went like I had planned, Penelope would be mine.
In ways more than one.
“What’s going on in your deviant mind, Harry Potter?”
I turned to Susan, seeing the frown on her face. Susan was a complicated girl. She had a good head on her shoulders, and knew a playboy when she saw one. But despite her self-proclaimed disdain for the stereotype, she went out of her way to ensure she held my interest, whether it be leaving a window open for me to convince her otherwise, or by bringing up my playboy attitude all the time in conversation. Maybe she was one of those tsundere-types that weeaboos on the internet kept chattering about.
“Oh you know, thinking of ways to get you in bed,” I said with a straight face.
“In your dreams,” she shot back.
“Oh long past,” I said, “we’ve gone way more than that in my dreams. Why was there this thing with honey and candle wax and bright red lingerie ....”
“Behave!” Hannah slapped me on the thigh. I grinned at her and found her rolling her eyes at me. Her hand still didn’t leave my thigh though.
Susan had gone bright red in the face, like that aforementioned lingerie. “You’re a true lowlife.”
“And you’re sitting there, eating ice-cream and flirting back.”
She moved closer. “I’m not flirting with you.”
I smirked. “Of course you aren’t.”
Susan, from what I had seen, was never quite idle. Whether it be in getting advanced dueling training from her aunt’s bodyguards, or being a constant participant in the Under-19 dueling tournaments, or playing Mom to her fellow Hufflepuffs, she always had to be doing something. A woman so full of energy had to be a wildcat in bed. I’d go out on a limb and say that she was one of those women who knew better but always sought the type that she held active disdain for. And then she’d get burned, or worse, break things up, and double down on her disdain. Behind that mask of superiority was a bitch in heat that just needed someone to surprise her, and take control of her life.
Make her his submissive.
Poor girl didn’t know she was sitting in front of a predator.
Susan might have some emotional and psychic control in her, but that didn’t mean she was immune to the Devil’s Charm. She was thinking me to be one of those snotty purebloods trying to get into her pants and then worm themselves into her fortune.
She’d learn to expect better of me.
“But you’re right,” I said, “I am scheming something. That girl, Penelope Clearwater, she was the Head-girl, wasn’t she?”
Susan narrowed her eyes. Even Hannah stopped fondling my thigh.
“What if she was?”
I sighed. “Look, we can’t have a conversation if you keep taking offense at every word that leaves my mouth.”
“Well it’s not my fault that—” Susan began, but Hannah let out an annoyed throaty noise.
“Fine!” Susan settled for a frown, and crossed her arms over the table. “Yes, she was. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering what a Head-girl is doing in a place like this.”
“She’s a muggleborn,” Susan said, a flicker of sadness mixed with resignation flashing across her face. “There aren’t many opportunities for her kind.”
“Surely there are more opportunities for muggleborns than just being…” I paused, and looked around to see if she was nearby, “parlor waitresses?”
“It’s a long story,” said Hannah, pushing her ice-cream away and pulling her left hand.
“I’m all ears,” I offered, “I admit it isn’t as interesting to have Susan fire insults and flirt with me,” Susan glared at me which I happily ignored, “but I’m genuinely interested.”
“Why?” Susan asked again.
“Does it matter?”
“Why always matters.”
I sighed. “Fine. I’ve taken control of my family’s finances recently, and might have started a venture or two. Someone of her talents could be useful in my firm.”
Susan narrowed her eyes. “What venture?”
“Moonforge Inc.” I told her, “it deals with enchanting products.”
That was, technically speaking, not a lie. Moonforge Inc. was an enchanting company, but it didn’t enchant products for magicals. No, it enchanted muggle products for magical use, a market that was still unexplored, thanks to pureblood bigotry and lack of genuine creative interest. Getting them approved through the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office was going to be easy, given Arthur Weasley was the Head. It was getting through to the next stage— the Body of International Magical Standards, a sub-office of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, that was being the real issue. The worst part was that the guy leading the office was Albert Gibbon, the guy that Hestia had tried to get arrested, only for the Malfoys to turn the tables and get her kicked out instead.
Interestingly, it was this department that Percy was first hired after passing out of Hogwarts. Who knew inspecting cauldron-bottoms could be part of that job description?
“An enchanting industry,” she raised a single eyebrow with more grace than I had in my entire body. “There’s like a ton of those. Couldn’t you’ve gone for something more unique?”
I shrugged. “Gotta start somewhere.”
She rolled her eyes and muttered something like dimwit under her breath.
“And now the story?” I asked. “What’s a Head-girl doing in a place like this?”
“You’ve got it backwards, Potter,” said Susan, “Penelope’s here precisely because she was Head-girl.”
I blinked.
“Come again?”
“Penelope’s committed two major faux-passes at school. The first is that she’s biased against Slytherins—”
“Means she calls a spade a spade,” muttered Hannah.
Susan threw her a dirty look. “She made no friends when she sentenced Draco Malfoy to detention several times during her time as Prefect. She went out of her body to catch contraband smuggling inside Hogwarts. Attracted the ire of the Carrow twins and Theo Nott. Honestly, I’m surprised she… got off like that.”
“And then she made Head-girl.” I said, the pieces of the puzzle slowly fitting together in my mind.
“Yes,” said Susan, “probably the worst decision she could’ve taken. A muggleborn Head Girl? I know Andrea Selwyn, and Xi Chang were possible choices, but she was chosen over them. The Selwyns are equally bad, if not worse than the Malfoys, and the Changs, well they’re the ticket to a long and prosperous magical dynasty going back over a millenia. A thousand years of esoteric magical lore and mystery, that enabled the Changs to get the Ancient and Noble status in Wizarding Britain, and Professor Dumbledore chose an ordinary muggleborn over the heir of the House Chang.”
I winced.
“Honestly,” said Hannah, “that was like the worst thing that could’ve happened. Slytherin House was in rebellion. At least Flitwck knows how to keep Ravenclaw House under control. Snape just… lets them run amok.”
That he does. No doubt about that.
“Is that why…” I paused, wondering how to best phrase it, “Is that why Percy Weasley left her?”
This time it was Hannah that gave me a speculative stare.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
I shrugged. “The Weasleys are like family, and I know Percy was dating her, until…”
That seemed enough for her. Hannah nodded slowly and exhaled. “Percy Weasley is an opportunistic snob. He got in a high position in the Ministry, and couldn’t be seen associating with someone so… disgraced.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“Penelope told me,” Hannah admitted. “We talk. She eats at my mum’s eatery. Mum adores her. In a fair world, she’d have been a star. Muggleborn, enchanter, runesmith, Head Girl… But here she’s a disgrace.”
“Enchanter and runesmith?” I asked, surprised.
Susan peered at me. “You didn’t know? Isn’t that why you were looking to hire her—?”
I shook my head. “She was just a prospect. I didn’t know about her talents.”
Penelope was simply too useful to let go.
“Oh,” Susan flipped her hair. “I doubt she’ll accept. I offered to ask Aunty to get her placed somewhere dignified, but Penelope wouldn’t have it. Her stubbornness is only making things worse for her.”
I pursed my lips. Part of me was feeling terrible about what was about to happen, especially after hearing her story. But now, it seemed like this was the best way to ensure things went my way.
I turned and looked at the Malfoy table. I had fired an extremely weak version of the spell— the only thing I was capable of right now, given my experiences all morning, but the symptoms were visible. Crabbe was already growling, and smashed his fist on the table, demanding quicker and faster service. I saw Penelope faze through his brash words and silently accept their orders and walk back to the counter.
“Yes, Malfoy and his goons come here every day,” Susan said, noticing my gaze.
I turned back. “Do you think they—”
She shook her head. “Nothing very bad. Mostly it’s just insults, at her blood, or her stupidity. Penelope never says a word so even they stopped taunting her after the first week or two.”
Today was going to be different. But Susan had no way of knowing it.
“You seriously didn’t know anything about this?” Hannah asked.
I shook my head.
“Probably too busy bedding fangirls,” Susan muttered.
“Yes,” I said, not even bothering to correct her. My recent actions notwithstanding, anyone with two eyes and a brain could see that Harry Potter was a recluse. But Susan seemed to get off on trying to get a reaction out of me, so my best response was to deny that.
The sudden sound of plates crashing caught my ear, and I turned around, seeing two plates of ice-cream fallen on the floor, and a shell-shocked Penelope, standing, with a spray of ice-cream and spit over her robes, and an angry Crabbe standing before her.
“Is this what you call service, you stupid sow?”
And then he slapped her.
I clenched my fist.
“Harry—” Susan warned. “Don’t. You’ll make things worse for her.”
I turned around and met her eyes. “Don’t worry. Crabbe just looks like he’s in a bad mood. I think I’ll go see what that’s about.”
